Whale-watch industry pioneer Greg Kaufman, who started the Pacific Whale Foundation on Maui 38 years ago and built it into a $1 million-plus nonprofit supporting education, research and conservation, died Saturday at the age of 63.
Kaufman, who lost a four-month battle with brain cancer, started the ecotourism venture in 1980 buoyed by the appeal to “Save the Whales,” whose populations had been diminished by commercial whaling.
He would live long enough to see the North Pacific population of the humpback whale — the group that winters in Hawaii — be removed from the U.S. endangered species list in 2016.
“Greg fervently believed that we could help save whales by educating the public, from a scientific perspective, about these amazing animals and their ocean home,” the foundation’s board chairman, Paul Forestell, said in a statement. “That’s how we came to offer whale watches and other ocean ecotours in the first place — as a way to share our research, knowledge and passion with others.”
Born in Portland, Ore., Kaufman became a save-the-whales activist even before he earned his degree from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., in 1977.
During college he conducted research off Maui and decided to make the island his home, starting the Pacific Whale Foundation with a handful of friends.
At first the group survived by giving talks at hotels. Soon, however, those talks would be given at sea — a new concept at the time — as passengers got a close-up view of the whales.
By 1986 the foundation bought its first boat, and whale watching became a seven-days-a-week enterprise.
Kaufman had a reputation for being a brash, aggressive man who easily crossed swords with fellow whale conservationists, researchers and others who complained the Pacific Whale Foundation was more concerned with its bottom line than the whales’ welfare.
Over the years, the organization endured a state investigation into its operations, temporarily lost its research license and survived a pointed attack by a state
senator.
Today Kaufman’s venture has 182 full-time employees and 42 part-time employees. PacWhale Eco-Adventures last year carried more than 294,000 passengers, with three vessels operating year-round out of Maalaea and three out of Lahaina. Another boat is dedicated to research, and an additional vessel is joining the fleet in mid-March.
The foundation also offers whale-watch tours out of Hervey Bay, Australia, where the group has been conducting research for more than 30 years.
“All of our commercial vessels are used to collect research and other data for our studies on humpback whales, false killer whales and dolphins,” company spokeswoman Alison Nicole Stewart said.
Kaufman’s legacy includes placing a naturalist aboard every whale watch tour.
“The on-the-water interpretive and educational program is very good,” said former Pacific Whale Foundation research director Robin Baird, now a research biologist with the Cascadia Research Collective.
Kaufman served on the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Committee and was active at the international level in whale research, ocean conservation and marine ecotourism.
He is survived by wife Selket and children from a previous marriage: Uilani, La‘akea, Pulama and Kulia Kaufman. He is also survived by brothers Steven, Charles, Jeff, Brad and Scott; mother Vesta; and father Harold Kaufman.
Services are pending.
